The problem of metal arms

[Fred Brackin]

Actually it applies to metal legs too but in certain genres such as cyberpunk and Supers obvious cybernetic limbs with metal shells are popular.

The in-genre explanation may be that repairs are expensive so you need the DR or that good fake skin is expensive or maybe you were reassembled by aliens. Whether the real reason is that players think it looks cool is not relevant.

The problem is that even though many attributes of bionic limbs are decent affordable useful DR for UT levels isn't very affordable when bought with pts.

For example, say that you are a TL9 street samurai with one replacement arm and you want armor for it. The limbs from a TL9 Combat Hardsuit would be DR30 but that level of DR with the -40 for "One Arm Only" would be 90 pts. Even if you claim that you can't wear other armor over it for another -40% it's still 30pts. You probably didn't spend that much on Arm SS for it.

Meanwhile the whole Hardsuit is LC2 and you might not even need a License Perk to own that in a low LC sprawl.

There's also the issue that armoring just one limb isn't actually all that useful unless your torso is even more heavily armored.

So my best idea so far is probably "Accessory Perk: Limb Armor" plus Signature Gear to cover the $ price of it.

Does anybody think this is horribly munchkin-y or have some much better idea?

[Anders]

I'm thinking of a -80% limitation as long as you buy DR less than what you can normally get for money.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

So my best idea so far is probably "Accessory Perk: Limb Armor" plus Signature Gear to cover the $ price of it.

Does anybody think this is horribly munchkin-y or have some much better idea?

As a GM, I'd just require the price from starting cash without the signature gear.

If you can replicate it with gear and it doesn't stack with gear, there is absolutely no reason to charge character points just because something is attatched to someone's body.

The thing you might want to include is a license perk or enforcement powers. If he can walk around with his armored hand while other people can't walk about in armor because his counts as a "prosthetic", that's worth points.

[Bruno]

This is an intersection of three problematic parts of the DR advantage and/or the enhancement/limitation system:

• Partial DR (what if you have one arm and one leg? How much does it cost?).
• Settings where a bunch of DR can be purchased relatively cheaply for modest weight.
• Heavily limited advantages (well in excess of -80%)

Arguably the cyberarm's armor should have weight, but GURPS reeeally doesn't like getting into that for non-Equipment stuff.

If going the Accessory/Signature-Gear route, I would also make sure to add enough Payload (Exposed) for the armor - unless you want the weight to count, which is fine too.

This is similar to the Extra Arm (Weapon Mount) + buying a weapon approach, when you want an Innate Attack similar to a weapon casually available in a setting. Also paired with Payload and Signature Gear, if you want it really built in.

The thing to worry about Signature Gear is that it can get pretty expensive. Payload too can get weird. So make sure to keep an eye on the cost of just buying it as the DR advantage compared to what you're spending on the built-in-gear version.

[whswhs]

Can the arm be removed and reattached? If so, you could buy it with Gadget mods: -20% for SM -2, -5% for its being a complex machine, -5% for the requirement of forcible removal, and possibly -15% for its being inconvenient to replace if damaged. Even without the -15%, you have -30% on top of -40% for its protecting a single arm, which gets you down to 45 points.

[DemiBenson]

These are all things i've been thinking about for a follow-up article on cyberware.
They're all good house rules and things to consider.
A quick summary of ones mentioned so far:

• Expensive advantages limited beyond -80%
• License perks
• Accessory perks for built-in equipment
• Gadget mods

Also,

• THS basically said to skip the points under some circumstances

I think, a combo of License/Accessory perks plus Gadget mods might be the way to go.

[Anthony]

In general I'm in favor of allowing implants of standard technology by taking an appropriate level of Signature Gear and Payload (probably a net +0% on payload -- you can't swap it out but also you can use stuff without taking it out of payload).

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Bruno

This is similar to the Extra Arm (Weapon Mount) + buying a weapon approach, when you want an Innate Attack similar to a weapon casually available in a setting. Also paired with Payload and Signature Gear, if you want it really built in.

Personally, I think this is the right way to go with this. I'd price this as Payload with the Exposed limitation, and a new limitation, "Armor Mount", -50%, which would basically limit the Payload to only being good for carrying the weight of the armor. To make it fit with the idea of being plating you attach, I'd associate the Payload levels with various hit locations: 2 levels for each limb (or 1 level for just the hand/foot or the upper section of the limb), 4 levels for the torso (divided into upper and lower torso, front and back), and 2 levels for the head (divided into face/front skull, and skull from behind). That all adds up to 14 levels, which, at 28 lbs. for a ST 10 character, is more than enough to account for the weight of most Ultra-Tech armor suits anyway, so I don't think precise weight tracking is necessary.

So someone with an armored cyberarm and hand would buy 2 levels of Payload (Exposed, -50%; Armor Mount, -50%) [1], and then spend the money to buy whatever armor they'd need for just an arm and hand. The "Ultra-Tech Armor Design" article in Pyramid #3/96 will probably be useful here to build the armor.

[Varyon]

My own intent is to have cybernetics - which I refer to as "augmentations," because Deus Ex: Human Revolution (and Mankind Divided to a lesser extent) is a huge influence on the way I think of cybernetics - simply be gear. Well, sort of - characters with augmentations are likely (but not required) to have an Augmentations Only version of Payload, for BL/5 per [1]. They can also get Payload ST (Augmentations Only) for [1] per +2 Lifting ST only for purposes of determining how much weight each level of Payload (Augmentations Only) supports. As the two traits represent exactly the same thing (the body getting used to carrying around the extra weight), it's basically a point-juggling act to get the most weight for the least cost.

Failing something like the above, I feel that for any ability that can be mimicked with gear, you should recreate the gear as an Advantage with Gadget Limitations (and similar). Change the point cost of this Advantage so that it's equal to what the gear would cost to have as Signature Gear, then buy off any inappropriate Limitation to find the fair cost of the Advantage itself. You can often approximate this by just increasing the price of the gear by 25% or so before determining how many levels of Signature Gear are needed (the boost accounts for it being internal rather than a stealable, breakable piece of gear).

[whswhs]

Having it actually be gear isn't inherently bad. You could, after all, buy a sniper rifle as an Innate Attack with Gadget modifiers; but in a world where sniper rifles are mass produced and purchasable, you could take it as Signature Gear, or just pay cash for it. And a prosthetic arm could be any of these, depending on how readily available prosthetics are.

In fact, yet another way to describe it would be to say that you have One Arm with Mitigator. The point cost would be the point difference between having the mitigator and not having it. After all, an enemy could subdue you and detach the arm, and then you'd be handicapped till you got another one.